Foundation: 1996
Headquarters: Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo
President and CEO: Manabu Miyasaka
Executive Summary: Yahoo! Japan Corporation is a significant internet company in Japan, established as a joint venture between the American company Yahoo! and Japan’s SoftBank in 1996. Launched formally on April 1, 1996, it quickly became one of Japan’s most visited websites. It achieved a historic milestone by being the first stock in Japan to trade above ¥100 million per share and was listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in October 2003, subsequently joining the Nikkei 225 index in 2005.
Yahoo! Japan has also made a cultural impact by acquiring naming rights for the Fukuoka Dome in 2005, renaming it the “Fukuoka Yahoo! Japan Dome.” Since 2010, the company has utilized Google’s search technology for its search engine, in return providing Google with user activity data from its services.
The landscape shifted in 2017 when Verizon Communications acquired Yahoo!’s core internet business in the U.S., merging it into Oath, Inc. (later Verizon Media). However, this did not affect Yahoo! Japan, which maintained its operations as a joint venture between SoftBank and the restructured Yahoo! Inc., now known as Altaba. While the global Yahoo! brand saw a decline in popularity, Yahoo! Japan has remained a formidable player in its domestic market.
In July 2018, SoftBank increased its stake in Yahoo! Japan by purchasing US$2 billion worth of shares from Altaba, raising its ownership to over 48%. That same year, Yahoo! Japan bought back a similar amount of stock from SoftBank. By September 2018, Altaba had divested all its remaining shares in Yahoo! Japan for approximately US$4.3 billion. Yahoo! Japan’s annual revenue is in the range of US$8 billion.